From The Ashes
by RosannaStone
Summary: Officer John Blake has a history of saving Emma Foster when she needs it the most, but she's on her own when she stumbles upon Bane's underground operation. As Gotham spirals out of control, Bane makes her question everything she believes. Emma finds herself torn between the cop who once kept her life from falling apart, and the masked man who just might change everything. BanexOC
1. One

**Hey guys. Here's my first attempt at writing a TDKR fanfic. A lot of this chapter centers a lot around Emma's story and John Blake, but I promise more Bane in the next chapter. Cause he's fricken awesome.**

** Let me know what you think, because as long as someone likes it I will keep on writing it! **

* * *

I remembered the last time I was here, at the Gotham Police Headquarters. I didn't want to remember, but I did. I remembered everything. But that was why I was here today. That's why I needed to see him.

My thoughts were interrupted when a hand touched my shoulder. I jumped back in my chair, and looked up to see the lady who had checked me in.

"Oh, I'm so sorry to scare you, Miss Foster," she said. "Officer Blake is ready to see you."

I stood up and followed the woman as she led me into the main room. Desks were spaced out through the room, each with two chairs: one for the cop, and one for the victim. I glanced around the room for the person I was looking for, and finally found him in the back corner, talking on the phone with an upset expression.

"We have to offer witness protection for all of the cases that call for it, not just the political ones!" argued John Blake. "It's not- uh.. I'm gonna have to call you back, Boss." He looked up at me and hung up the phone with a smile that was half confusion and half happiness.

"Officer Blake, this is…"

"Miss Foster," finished John.

"I see you don't need any introductions. I'll leave you both to it, then," said the woman with a small smile. She walked away and John and I sat down at his desk.

"You remember me," I said, finally smiling a little at him. "Please, call me Emma."

"Of course I do, Emma. You look better! I mean- older… um…"

"Different?" I supplied. It had been two years since he had last seen me, and I had grown up a bit since then.

"Yeah, that's what I meant. So, how have things been?" he asked.

"Fine, until now," I said. "My brother hasn't been doing so well since the- the incident. He's sort of why I'm here, actually. I know you really helped him through a hard time in his life, especially right after the trial, and I just didn't know who else to come to, except for you."

"Will?" asked John. "Is he in trouble?"

"I think so. Money's been tight around our house with me about to go to college, and Will knew how stressed out I was about it. All I know is that when I woke up yesterday morning he was gone. He left a note saying that he was going to go make some money and not to worry about him, but he hasn't been home, at his friends, or anywhere else he usually is for the past day. I think something bad has happened to him. He has made some mistakes in the past few years- and I don't blame him. He's an angry kid. But he always comes home, every night."

John sighed and looked down at his hands, then looked up at me.

"Listen, Emma, I worry about Will just as much as you do. But you know that if it hasn't been forty eight hours I can't report him as a missing person, and when I do he'll get shrugged off as a runaway. A sixteen year old boy with a criminal record running away from home? It's just too common here in Gotham."

"Well, that's the problem with you cops, isn't it? You can't save anyone until they get hurt!" I snapped. John looked shocked. I was just as surprised as him at the words that had come out of my mouth. A few heads snapped around to look at us, and I looked down at my lap in shame.

"I-I'm sorry, I didn't mean to say that…" I stuttered. I couldn't believe that I had snapped at the one person who was really there for my brother when he needed it.

"It's okay, you don't have to apologize. I'm just as angry as you about it. If you really think Will is in trouble, I can check out a few of the places he could be. It's not much, but it's a start," said John.

"Thank you," I said with a sigh of relief. "Where are you thinking of looking?" I asked.

"The word is that there is some work down in the tunnels, but I have a feeling there is something bad going on down there. Do you have a picture, or something I can use to find him?" he asked.

"I didn't even think of that," I said.

"That's okay, I can pull up his mug shot on my computer," said John.

He shook his mouse to wake up the screen and started typing. It was the first time I had really taken a good look at him. He looked much older; his short, buzzed police academy haircut had been grown out a little, and I could have sworn he had grown an inch. He was no longer an unsure trainee from the police academy; he was a confident man now. He realized I was staring at him, so I quickly covered the moment by glancing over at the widow just behind him.

"I'll print this off. I promise I will do everything I can to find your brother, Emma," he said.

I thanked him again and got up to leave.

"Hold on, uh, let me give you my personal number, in case you need anything else," he said. He fumbled around on his desk looking for something to write on, and finally found a sticky note.

"Thanks," I said, smiling. "For everything." I walked towards the door, not daring to look back until I was at it. John was sitting at his desk, a sad look on his face. I knew that he was remembering the first time we met. It was hard to forget.

I was so young back then. So naive, so stupid.

* * *

"_Dad, I'm not going to clean up the entire kitchen if Will isn't here to wash the dishes. It's not fair!" I yelled across the kitchen at my father. _

"_Emma, your brother will be punished for not being home in time for dinner. We're going to have a talk with him about it," said my mom. I rolled my eyes. My brother wasn't only late for dinner. He usually spent his nights smoking pot behind the Gotham High athletics building. My parents could be so clueless. _

_My phone beeped, and my entire family froze. I had been getting weird text messages from a blocked number three months now. They said weird things, like "What are you wearing to Prom?" or "I love you, babe". We had told the police but they said that since the messages came from a disposable cell phone there was nothing that they could really do. They just assumed someone had the wrong number._

_Things had gotten weird in the past month though. Twice I looked out my window to see a box of chocolates on the fire escape, and I even found a note once. It was a typical love letter, but it wasn't addressed to anyone and simply signed, "Your secret admirer". A bouquet of red roses was placed next to the note. I knew that the gifts weren't for me, though. An aspiring model loved right above my room, and I just assumed that the gifts were for her and the secret admirer was off by one floor. I took the gifts up to her, and that was the last of it. I decided that my parents didn't need to know._

_I walked over to open the message, my mother behind me looking over my shoulders. I took a deep breath and opened the text. _

"_It's just Aaron!" I said with relief. "He says he'll be over in a few minutes to work on my English paper."_

"_You really think you'll get the best grades if you write your paper with your boyfriend?" asked my Dad with his eyebrow raised. I shot him my best annoyed look and he turned back to the baseball game on TV. _

"_Dad, Aaron is a junior. He's already written the paper, so he knows what I should focus on!" I said, rolling my eyes. _

_The doorbell rang and I jumped up, looking at my mom imploringly._

"_I haven't even changed yet! He can't see me like this! Stall for me, mom!" I yelled as I ran to my room to change out of my sweats. _

"_Honey, he brought you a bouquet of red roses- or three, I can barely see his face through the peephole," she said with a laugh. _

_I immediately knew something was wrong. Yellow roses had always been our flower- he had jokingly picked them out for our first date because they matched his Gotham High football jersey and my cheerleading outfit. But red? He had never gotten me red flowers. _

"_Mom, don't-" Her screams cut off my warning. I raced out of my room only to find my father right outside my door. His hand was covering my mouth, and I turned to him in horror._

"_Don't scream. Go back to your room and lock the door, honey, I'll hold him off. Get out on the fire escape and call the police!" he whispered. _

"_But, mom…" I said frantically. "We have to save her!" _

_My father shook his head with tears in his eyes, and I knew what he meant. _

"_No, no, no, no, this can't be happening, this can't," I cried. _

"_Emma?" yelled a man's voice from the kitchen. "EMMA!" _

"_Get into you room, now!" my dad said, shoving me back through my doorway and slamming the door shut. _

_I hurried to lock my door and then backed away in horror. I grabbed my phone from my desk and dialed 911 as I raced to my window. _

"_911, what is your emergency?" asked a calm voice. _

"_I- I'm in my room, there's someone in my house and I think he killed my mom!" I said hastily into the phone. _

"_Stay calm, I'm getting your address now. 108 Freemont Avenue, right?"_

"_Yeah, apartment 3C," I answered. I finally reached my window and tried to pry it open, but for some reason it wouldn't budge. _

"_My window won't open, I'm stuck! I'm stuck- oh god," I said as I heard a loud thump on my door. I heard my dad straining against someone, I whimpered as he let out a scream of pain. _

"_Remain calm, the police are on their way. Find something heavy, like a bat, and see if you can break open the window," said the operator. _

_I looked around my room and spotted the heavy iron lamp on my desk. I swung it at the window and it broke immediately, pieces of glass flying everywhere. I heard my father screaming in agony, and I began to climb out the window, putting my phone out on the escape before jumping up. Shards of glass cut through my hands as I struggled to pull myself up through the window. I heard pounding against my door, and by the time it burst open I only had half of my body up on the ledge._

_I screamed in pain and rage as I felt my feet being pulled back into the room. The phone slipped over the edge of the fire escape as tiny shards of glass scraped my legs and arms. I fought whoever was pulling me back, but he was too strong for me. He slammed me onto the ground and held me down, and that was when I finally saw his face. _

_His name was Nathan, and he had lived across the hall from us for a year. He was a college student at Gotham University. He was quiet, he was polite. I even remembered thinking he was sort of cute. _

"_Nathan?" I said incredulously. "What are you doing?"_

"_Shh, shh, it's okay, you don't have to worry anymore," he said. He brushed a strand of hair behind my ears. "No one can tear us apart now." _

"_What?" I said. "Tear us apart?" _

"_I know that your parents and that idiot kid Aaron stood in the way of our love. But now that all of them are gone, there's nothing keeping us apart," he said with a smile. _

"_You killed my parents and my boyfriend. If you think I want to be with you then you are crazy!" I spat at him. _

"_YOU LOVE ME!" he screamed, slamming my head against the floor. I yelped in pain and started crying as the agony in my head grew. _

"_Don't lie to me, Emma, you love me. We're high school sweethearts!" he said. "Remember when we won Prom King and Queen, and you wore that beautiful blue dress. And then I won the football game, and you cheered me on, and it was perfect?" The excitement seemed to grow in his voice. He honestly seemed to believe what he was saying. _

"_I- I do. It was perfect," I said. I just had to play along until the police got here. _

"_Yeah, it was. We have to go now, okay? I'm gonna let you up now, and you're going to come with me, okay?"_

"_Now?" I asked. "Can I grab my sweatshirt?" I asked, fumbling around for something that would take up time. _

"_Just that, but then we have to go," he said. He stood up and helped me stand, smiling at me and looking into my eyes. I smiled back and walked over to my closet. As I lifted my hand the hem of my shirt came up slightly and revealed the fake tattoo I had on my hip. It said, "#18 GOTHAM HIGH", and all of the girls with boyfriends on the football team had worn them to the game last night, each with their boyfriend's jersey number. I had a matching one on my wrist. _

"_What is that?" he said angrily. _

"_It's just a temporary tattoo," I said, backing away. _

"_That's Aaron's number. You aren't his anymore. YOU ARE MINE!" he screamed and lunged at me with a knife. _

By the time the police got to my house he had taken a knife and tried to cut the tattoos off of me. I was bleeding out through my wrist, and he had stabbed my hip three times. All I know is that I blacked out, and when I woke up Officer Blake had picked me up off of the floor and was running me downstairs to the ambulance.

I later learned that they had apprehended Nathan trying to flee from the scene. They found both my parents dead, stabbed multiple times with the same knife. Nathan had schizophrenia and a number of other disorders, and in his head he believed that we were high school sweethearts, and that my parents and my boyfriend were trying to keep us apart. The text messages, the gifts, it had all been from him. They found thousands of pictures of me covering his apartment.

Once Officer Blake took me to the hospital, he was the one who found my brother and told him what happened. He was the one who sat with my brother while I was in the hospital as they tried to replace the blood I had lost. And he was the one who talked to Will, calmed him down when he was angry.

I was angry at Nathan King. I was angry that he killed my parents, and that he only got 25 years with the possibility of parole when he plead out insanity during the trial. I was angry that my boyfriend had been killed, that my life had been turned upside down, that my perfect illusion of life had been shattered.

But Will was a different kind of angry, and an especially painful one. He was angry at himself. He was angry that he hadn't been home to stop Nathan King. He was angry that he had been off smoking weed behind a school while his family was being butchered. He was angry that he didn't see the signs, didn't realize just how weird the text messages were, and just how off the guy across the hall seemed. I couldn't forgive Nathan King, but Will couldn't forgive himself. Will had me, and I had Will, and that was all either of us had left.

* * *

I exited the Police Headquarters building and got on the bus to my Aunt Sarah's house. I was glad she was gone on vacation, because I didn't want to deal with her when I got home. She was a good person, but I think I think that deep down, secretly, some part of her blamed me for my mom's death. It was nice of her to take in my brother and me when our parents died, but I know that she did it out of a sense of duty to her dead sister, not because she wanted to raise two teenagers. She was young, and she was engaged to a nice man. They had a nice life, but Will and I knew our lives would never be nice again. We were awkwardly stuck together; Sarah tiptoed around Will's anger and my feelings, while we tiptoed around her perfect little fairytale romance. No one got stepped on that way.

I got off the bus and walked the last two blocks to my house. Even though the sun hadn't even begun to go down, the alleyways and side streets of Gotham were still a bit spooky to me. I sped up my walk to an awkward pace that wasn't quite a run, but could become one if it needed to. I hurried past the store, past the church, past the alleyway with the boy in it- I stopped and did a double take. The boy was far away, but I could see a distinct mop of dark brown hair as he disappeared down a storm drain.

"Will," I breathed, hardly believing it was him. "WILL!" I yelled. But the teenager had disappeared down the drain. I took a deep breath. Either I waited for John to find him, which could take days, or I sucked up my fear and followed him now. I chose the latter and quickly ran to the storm drain. The cover had been placed back hastily, so it wasn't too hard to move. I looked down the hole, said a quick goodbye to the sun, and climbed in.

It was, surprisingly, not dark. A series of lights led the way down a tunnel. At the very end I could just make out a tall figure turning the corner. I ran towards him, stumbling on the uneven floor.

"Will!" I screamed. I had no idea why he wasn't stopping, but he kept on running, turning corners every now and then. I became aware that the one tunnel had suddenly become a tangle of passages and dead ends, but this only made me more determined to catch Will. I was gaining on him, and as he looked back at me he stumbled on the ground and fell to the floor.

"Will!" I said as he scrambled to his feet.

"Get the fuck away from me, lady, my name's not Will!" said the boy. We both stood there, our chests heaving, and I realized he was right. The face was too long, the hair to short, and the boy looked to be about two years younger than Will.

"I-I'm sorry, I thought you were someone different," I choked out. The kid gave me one last confused look before sprinting off down the cave.

I stood in silence as his final footsteps echoed down the tunnel. I had no idea where I was, and no idea where I had come from. In my desperation to find Will I hadn't thought through what a stupid idea it was to run around underground Gotham. I had to be smart if I wanted to get out of here.

I saw the lights hanging along the walls and realized that each light was connected to a wire, which was connected to another light, and so on. I walked to the wall across from me and saw that two wires branched out from one cable. The lights had to have some sort of source, and that was the only direction I could head in.

I continued down the hall for a few minutes, turning where the wire turned. I thought I heard footsteps every now and then, but my imagination was so good at playing tricks on me above ground that I knew it was probably having a blast underground. Suddenly I heard the faint sound of flowing water. I ran towards the sound, hoping to get to some central area of the tunnels. That when I heard the drilling, and the sound of loud voices. I smiled and hoped that I had come across some sort of construction project that could point me out of the tunnels.

I came around the corner and was shocked by what I saw. A huge room stood before me, impossibly tall and very wide. In the very center there was a huge waterfall which led into a river that ran under the metal walkways that connected the levels and tunnels together. Some men were drilling into the concrete just underneath the ceiling of the room, but I couldn't see what else they were doing from this far away.

I thought it was weird that some of the men didn't have helmets, and then I realized that none of them were wearing matching uniforms either. There was no manager walking around with a clipboard, or bright orange safety vests, or anything a normal construction site would normally have. I looked farther around the corner and saw two men talking as one of them cleaned a gun.

I gasped as I realized that I had gotten myself into something I wasn't supposed to see. The man with the gun looked up and saw me standing there.

"What do you think you're doing here?" he yelled. The two men ran towards me, and I took off like a bullet, running as fast as I could in any direction. I looked back over my shoulder to see if I had gotten away and turned back just in time to hit a wall.

I stumbled backwards, dazed, and fought to keep on my feet.

"Are you lost?" asked the wall in a gravely voice. I looked up to see that the wall was really a man- the biggest man I had ever seen. He was pure muscle; bulging veins slithered up his forearms and disappeared into his biceps. He wore a mask unlike anything I had ever seen before. Between the guys with guns and the creepy mask guy, I chose the guns.

I scrambled backwards and began to run the other way, but before I could very far I saw the bottom of a large gun appear from around the corner and slam into my head. I dropped immediately onto the damp floor, my vision leaving as I felt the pain in my head throbbing with every heartbeat. I looked up to see the man with the gun standing next to the man in the mask.

"Was that much force really necessary?" said the mask.

I mentally agreed with him before I finally blacked out.


	2. Two

**I am so so so sorry this took so long! I was on vacation, but as soon as I got back I typed it up. Please read and review, and thanks for the many people who already have. I like to hear back from people who read. This story is for you, after all:)**

* * *

I woke up suddenly with a splitting headache. I knew that I was still in the tunnels, but I had been moved to another room. The room seemed smaller than it probably was, due to the boxes stacked around the perimeter. A single bed was next to a desk overflowing with papers, and two fluorescent lights hung high from the ceiling, making my headache worse. There was one window cut into the concrete that looked out over the main room of the tunnel. There was an entrance with a heavy curtain pulled over it, and when it was suddenly pulled back I let out a groan.

"You!" I spat at the man that came in. I recognized him as the man that had hit me with the gun. I tried to stand up, but as I did, I felt my arm jerk back. I realized that my left wrist had been handcuffed to a pipe in the wall.

"I prefer to be called Barsad," he said with a smile and a surprising Irish accent. "Finally, you're up. Took you long enough. I'll go get Bane."

"Who?" I asked.

He just smirked and left the room. A minute later, Barsad and the man with the mask appeared in the doorway. Barsad walked over to the desk and shifted through the papers, but the huge man walked over to me.

"What is your name, child?" he asked. I was slightly offended by his question. Child? I was almost eighteen. And no matter what my age was, I had left my child hood long ago with my parent's deaths.

"Emma," I whispered. I was embarrassed to find that my voice was so quiet, something that only happened when I was nervous or scared.

"It is nice to meet you, Emma. My name is Bane." His politeness threw me off, and for some reason only made me more scared of him.

"What brings you down here?" he asked.

"My brother, Will, I thought I saw him come down here, so I followed him and I got lost." I explained.

"I remember a Will," said Barsad. "Tall, brown hair, looked a lot like you. He wanted a job down here, but I told him to look across the river, out of Gotham. Last I heard he had gotten out of Gotham with a few friends to find work."

I breathed a sigh of relief.

"Thank you, Barsad," said Bane. A look I didn't understand passed between the two of them, and Barsad nodded his head and walked out of the room.

"You don't understand why you're here, do you?" asked Bane as he took off his heavy coat and placed it on the chair to reveal a black shirt under it. I didn't know how it was possible, but his size seemed to grow when he took it off.

I shook my head. I had only seen a group of men working underground, albeit with guns, but I didn't understand what exactly I had done to warrant being chained to a pipe.

"I have a job to carry out here in Gotham, and if the police were to know I was down here, it could destroy everything we've worked for." He noticed my confused expression and let out a laugh. "You will understand soon. For now, I need to keep you here. I will let you go when the time is right."

Outside of the room, a loud explosion went off. I winced in pain as my headache began to throb again.

Bane walked over to me and reached his hand towards me. I flinched away from him, but he surprised me by turning my face to the right.

"You're bleeding," he commented. I used my free arm to touch the painful spot on my head and was surprised when I pulled it away to find blood on my hand. Bane went over to one of the boxes by the desk and pulled out a bottle and a cloth. He poured some of the liquid onto the cloth, and then crouched down next to me.

I breathed in sharply as the antiseptic touched my open wound, but was relieved when a few seconds later I couldn't feel the wound anymore.

"Thank you," I said as I felt the headache begin to subside as well. Whatever Bane had in that bottle, it was strong.

Bane turned away from me and sat down at the desk, looking at the papers strewn haphazardly across it. He would read some papers and write on others, and seemed to be working on something intently. Every once in a while I spied a map of Gotham with X's all over it, but when I leaned over to get a better view, Bane slid the map away from me.

* * *

Time passed slowly for me. I spent a lot of time in still silence, just thinking, but being held captive by Bane was surprisingly boring. I spent almost all of my time watching Bane work, seeing as nothing else proved interesting. The damp floor was cold and uncomfortable, and I cursed myself for my outfit choice this morning: skinny jeans, a white knit pullover, and brown boots. I had put a little effort into my outfit to meet John Blake that morning, I realized, something which I had very rarely done since my parents had died.

Thinking about John Blake reminded me that I had his number- and my phone- in my bag. I looked around the room and found it stashed below the desk. If I wanted to get out of here, I knew that reaching my bag was my best option.

I realized just how entirely my life was in Bane's hands. There was no reason for him to keep me alive. But for some reason, he was.

Another hour passed. My teeth started to chatter loudly, as they usually did in the cold. Soon my body began to shiver as well. After a while, Bane couldn't ignore the obvious sound of my teeth chattering. He stood up and, without a word, draped his huge coat around my shoulders. It was unexpected, but I realized that unexpected was what I should learn to expect from him.

"Do wrist hurts. Do you really need to handcuff me to a wall?" I asked him, hoping to capitalize on his moment of humanity. He rolled his eyes and leaned down to take of the handcuff.

"You run, you die," he said simply, and I nodded to let him know I got the message. He took out a key and opened the handcuff, but grabbed my wrist when he did. He turned it over to see the scars that Nathan King had carved into my wrist so long ago. He shook his head.

"So young to try and end your own life," he said, almost with disgust. I snatched my hand away from him and growled, "Don't you dark assume to know anything about my life!"

He looked taken aback, and stood up quickly. Luckily Barsad came into to the room when he did, because I didn't want to see Bane's reaction.

"Some men have found the commissioner and have brought him down here. They're asking for you," Barsad said. Bane left the room with him, and, after waiting a minute until I could hear their footsteps disappear, raced over to my bag and rifled through it, trying to find the phone. I went throught my bag over and over but my phone was missing. I knew it could be anywhere in the room, but I guessed that my best bet was to look in the desk. My hunch paid off as I opened the top drawer to find my phone.

I hurried to turn it on, but it took while to power up. I breathed a sigh of relief as it finally turned on. As it said, "searching for service", I heard footsteps down the hallway. I hurried to dial 911, my fingers clumsily flying over the keypad, but before I pressed send the phone was snatched out of my hand. Bane was holding my phone, and he did not look happy at all. He easily snapped the phone in half and sent the pieces flying across the room. He grabbed me by the throat and lifted me off of the ground, and for the first time that day I truly feared dying.

His fingers closed tighter around my neck, and I struggled to breathe. I began to see black spots on the edges of my vision and knew I would run out of oxygen soon. I gasped for air one more time.

"Please don't," was all I managed to choke out. Bane's cold eyes suddenly grew wide, as if he was surprised by what he was doing, and he let go. I dropped to the floor in a heap gasping for air.

"If you try to escape or contact anyone again, I will not hesitate to kill you. Don't mistake my indifference towards you for compassion," Bane said. Then he turned and left me alone in the room, more confused than I had been the whole day.


End file.
